The Bulls traded their best player for a soon-to-be restricted free agent coming off an ACL tear (Zach LaVine), one of the most underperforming members of a 2016 draft full of them (Kris Dunn) and the No. 7 pick in a loaded draft, which they used on Markkanen, who was considered a reach at that spot.

The good news: GarPax finally blew up the Bulls, who should be really bad, especially now that they’ve bought out the rest of Dwyane Wade’s contract. And, hey, Markkanen looked pretty good for Finland at EuroBasket, where he averaged 19.5 points (on 53.3 percent shooting) and 5.7 rebounds this month.

The Bulls also re-signed Nikola Mirotic to a two-year, $27 million deal that was a bit of a head-scratcher, considering the lack of interest in the streaky-shooting, defensive-challenged big man. Ex-New York Knicks guard Justin Holiday was a nice free-agent flier for short money, and oft-injured wing Quincy Pondexter is a helpful player when healthy, but neither will move the needle all that much.

LaVine, Dunn, Markkanen, Bobby Portis, Denzel Valentine and Paul Zipser are an intriguing young core for former college coach Fred Hoiberg to develop without the burden of kowtowing to veteran egos. But everyone knows what the Bulls are now, and that’s a team headed for some solid lottery odds.

Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and Denzel Valentine are the Bulls’ new three alphas. (AP)

If everything falls apart: We are here. Six years removed from the conference finalist Bulls adding Butler at the back end of the 2011 draft and seemingly setting themselves up for a decade of contention, everyone is gone. The worst-case scenario for these Bulls is if coach Fred Hoiberg, vice president of basketball operations John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman, whose name is being thrown around by anonymous sources as a metaphor for bad GM’ing, all prove once and for all that they’re unfit for command, and Bulls ownership continues to let them steer into the iceberg.